klineshrike

Ebon plague specifically says magic, and SS is not a spell. Its a strike doing elemental damage, but it is not a spell. So it is not affected by this, unless something is amiss. And I have never seen Ebon plague as affecting it anywhere.

 

Netheroth

Sorry if this point was answered before, but I didn't succeed in finding an answer to it ...

Do all DK's spells use melee chance to hit or do some of them (IT, HB, DC ...) use spell chance to hit ?
If it's melee based, does dual wield penalty affects non melee spells too ?

Lacking +tohit stuff to test it myself, I can't figure it out for now

 

gorsameth

Even if it is melee based then it is still counted as a special which never suffer the added miss chance from dw.

As for melee or spellhit i couldnt say with all hit being general hit now it isnt really an issue either.

 

Skulli

Not sure if our spells use spellhit, but i rarely (almost never) see any resists of my spells while questing atleast and i am at around 6% hit. Also i dont have the spellhit talent.

 

Darkrenown

It's not like they're exclusive, have Baron's for your land mount and the Deathchicken for your flying mount.

 

• Zurm

You are confusing magic and spell. An elemental strike still does magic damage. Not all spells have to do magic damage. The tooltip says magic damage, and elemental strikes still follow the same rules of magic (they can't be partially blocked, but they CAN be partially resisted). That being said, rather than arguing about it, someone can try to test it with a broken spec unholy spec (without crypt fever/ebon plague), and then going back to a traditional unholy spec(I would, but I have other things I have get done this weekend).

 

Netheroth

Damn right, this was really a silly question sorry, I definitely need some sleep

Hummm ... I missed this point, general hit ?
Is it to say items now give a bonus to both or there is only one hit score on character sheet now ?
I have to check this tonight.

I forgot about crit score, applied to every DK spells too, melee or not ?

 

• frmorrison

DKs use melee (like Blood Strike) and spells (like Icy Touch) to do damage. You can see a hints from the Unholy tree giving 3% spell hit and talents giving 5% spell crit, and the recent addition of 100% extra spell critical damage from spells.

Critical strike rating and hit rating affect both melee and spells (note melee and spell hit use different numbers to reach 1% hit).

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Hisstok

All ratings are universal between spells and mellee now, there are only some talents that only effect one or the other.

 

Zurai

Magic != spell. Spell has a specific definition in the game ("Cannot be blocked, dodged, or parried" according to Ghostcrawler, although I contest that definition since a great many things that don't otherwise act as spells can't be blocked, dodged, or parried). Magic does too (either "A debuff of the Magic type" or "A damage type other than physical" depending on context). Note that the definitions are not the same.

Go actually test Scourge Strike and Ebon Plague. They have always worked together - just like Arcane Shot and Curse of Elements work together.

 

Leaflock

You're right that Scourge Strike should be better than Obliterate for Unholy, but for the sake of keeping calculations consistent in this discussion, I wanted to point out some things.

1) Talents and buffs that modify Scourge Strike do not modify the weapon damage value. They modify Scourge Strike. (The exception being 2h weapon spec, I think). So, it's actually better than you're saying. It's 60% normalized weapon damage + 195 per disease for Scourge Strike. Then, that value * 1.3 * 1.13 * 1.05 * 1.15 = SS damage, unmodified by armor and critting for 230% damage.

2) Again, your weapon swing doesn't enter into the calculation. Instant attacks use a normalized weapon damage value.

3) "the need to preserve diseases for the other DKs". Uh, something I'm missing there? The only thing I can think of is that Crypt Fever will boost every DK's disease damage, so it might be nice to have one Unholy DK. If you're talking about refreshing/keeping other's diseases up, though, it doesn't work that way.

 

• frmorrison

From the wording, Obliterate eats all diseases. I know it used it eat all DK's diseases, but I haven't tested it in a few weeks, since I use the talented Obliterate now.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Leaflock

I see what he's talking about now. However, I think they just simplified the wording for the tooltip. Heart Strike, for instance, says that it does "an additional X bonus damage per disease." We know, of course, that it's only counting your own diseases in this calculation. Obliterate's wording says "an additional X bonus damage per disease, but consumes the diseases." Bonus damage for your diseases, but consumes those diseases only.

 

• Zurm

It no longer does I think. I was playing with a guildie who has a DK around my level, and as unholy without Annihilation my oblits (just for fun, wasn't using it repeatedly) were only eating my diseases.

 

Zurai

1) I accounted for both in my calculations. Since Blizzard's tooltips update both the % weapon damage contribution and the bonus damage component, and since the debate was over oblit's 120% weapon damage vs ss's 60%, I chose to do so as well. If you'll check my math you'll see that the numbers are correct for both the weapon damage component and the bonus damage component.

2) It does if you're using a 3.4 speed weapon, and 3.6 (the premade DK's weapon speed) isn't so far off as to invalidate the results.

3) That one's my bad. I thought Oblit still removed all diseases, not just yours. Shows how long it's been since I've used it without 3/3 Annihilation, huh? It's still a factor for your own diseases, though. Diseases deal very, very good DPS all on their own for an Unholy DK. Mine tick for ~750 and proc Wandering Plagues for ~1100. That's roughly 600 DPS all by themselves.

 

• vank

Obliterate only consumes your diseases.

On another note, I am damn intent on finding the APC for Howling Blast. It's just bugging me not knowing. I have a bunch of data, but I obviously don't know the proper math formula because my APC values are inconsistent (different) depending on my AP. So, could someone offer a quick walk through on how to find APC if you already have values for Net Damage, Attack Power (I'm assuming total AP), and the base damage of the spell?

Oh, and I tested Ebon Plague w/ Scourge Strike, and it definitely adds to the damage... if that was ever in doubt.

 

Aeronx

First of all, hi everybody, Im new on that forum.

On the other hand, I've been testing the DK, and there's a question in my head every time I play it. It's DK going to do same DPS or at least a competitive DPS in lvl 80 raids? Because Everyone here is talking about how much damage does one ability or another, but what about high end DKs doing DPS in a raid with an high end set? 'Cause, I've been testing my feral druid too, and they seems overpowereds behind the weak DKs. And What about DKs in PvP? i mean Arenas.

Correct me If Im wrong, but I still thinking that DKs is going to be much better for tanking than making DPS.

I like DKs, but I like my feral druid too. I want to reroll into DKs but Im not sure if its a good change, and DKs will be as useful as feral druid doing DPS.

 

• frmorrison

DKs had a lot of dps buffs last build (Blood/Heart Strike damage increase, spells crit harder, few talent improvements in frost, etc.).

Do not fret, they may not be equal to Ferals yet, but it is closer than before.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Aeronx

Yep, I thought so, 'cause the last buff was an high one, and they seem to be better for raid, but it will be worth to bring a DK into raid if isnt as a tank? 'Cause a feral druid, let's say a Cat talented one, now can do a huge damage and DPS equal to the best DPS, they can heal them selves, 5% crit and revive other people in combat.

So, what can give us a DK in a raid? A little buffs for damage to other clases?.. Hmm thats an important question :/

And what about PvP? did anybody test it in pvp? Not duels, i mean arenas, bg's? 'cause, DKs has to many defensive things like someone said in last replies, but they havent got a good burst, so we can survive forever but we can't kill anybody.. Any idea of all of these?

Thx

 

• frmorrison

DKs are great in a raid, especially if you do not have an Enhance Shaman (Blood DK gives 10% AP and Str/Agi Totem). Unholy DKs are nice too, giving 13% more magic damage (however affliction Warlocks are really awesome now).

Cats and Blood DKs can heal the group and reviving other people is only good if you have people that are good at standing in the fire. Rebirth is at the same time the best ability and worst ability in the game.


You are right, DKs don't have good burst, but are good at survival. This works great in PvP if no healers are around, since there is no healing debuff to slow the healing. DKs steady dps and many control tools are very useful and cannot be discounted. If DKs had a healing debuff, it would remove PvP Warriors. Note DKs their many abilities will scare off some players, similar to how Shaman is at the bottom of PvP representation. I predict DKs will be at the middle of the pack.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Aeronx

Well that's true! Maybe seen like this it seems useful, I've they get a little bit more buffed doing DPS, I think they will be as good as another DPS.

And about PVP, I see them like a suport class, silence, interrupt, magic resist for everybody, they heal them selves. But there's something important in PVP, and it's that you need CC and a good, at least, short burst. I dont think a DK could play 2vs2 with a healer or another DPS.

But its just a point of view!

(Im just new testing the DK, and they hit a lot harder before the last patch. About howling blast, and Icy touch, they now are usefull! )

 

klineshrike

To test the APC coefficient, all you need to do is find out how much more damage than the base its doing. Make sure you dont have FF at first to get small numbers, and less variance. Try to get an extremely low ATP, then do enough casts to get close to the min/max and subtract the base min from that min, and base max from that max.

Then increase the ATP, try to do so by as even of a number as possible, and do the same finding min max, then subtracting base. See the diff, then pick another relatively even ATP. If its inconsistant, just look at the numbers - often the coefficients are a pretty even number so you can guess what it should be.

As for the equation, well, you can just send me your numbers via PM and I could find it pretty easy
I really want Howling Blast numbers myself.

Also I apologize for the Ebon Plague thing then, as I could have sworn I read it didn't affect it. Many people claimed SS was a melee attack that was converted to shadwo at the end, preventing it from gaining spell affects and bonuses. This was why it can be blocked (which blizz stated was intentional). If ebon Plague affects it, they need to clarify that. However, the whole arguement was about scaling, thats why we only referred to the % of weapon damage and not the stagnant, bonus damage.

However still, my whole arguement was Oblit scales better than SS. This is still true, even with armor, however its not by much and doesnt seem to catch up to the vast lead SS gets with bonus damage and the lack of armor to worry about. I guess that was the intent though.

Tzen's spreadsheet didnt have Ebon Plague as affecting SS on the version I saw also, so this info helps as I need to include it in mine.

Any info now n ghouls would be very helpful. Like The base bonus they get from your stats like str and armor and stam, and what thier skills are and what they do, and thier base atp and damage at 80.

 

• vank

Howling Blast APC was finally added to this thread

 

Skulli

With a typical unholy spec with 53points in unholy (2h), is icy talons worth it to use it over 3/5 bladed armor?

Ghoul damage is roughly halfed.
- 225 autoattack, 320 for claws (non crit)
- 331 base str
- 1275 str with 3/3 ravenous dead without any buffs (=> 2111 atp)
- main attack is 334-375

My char has 843 strength without buffs.

 

Zurai

No, not for 2h. Haste isn't a very good stat for 2h Unholy, especially if you skip Blood-Caked Blade (as you should). Take Bladed Armor. It benefits the same thing Icy Talons does (autoattack, necrosis, and blood-caked strike damage) and everything else you do, including your parry rating.